(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to devices that can be used to supply water to objects, such as growing plants, that might succumb to dehydration or be damaged when not supplied with water due to the absence of one who might otherwise directly administer water to such objects.
The watering apparatus is gravity fed, uses no moving parts, and requires no electrical, electronic, or mechanical parts to operate. It would relate to gravity fed irrigating devices, but only in so far as water flows from a higher to lower point to deliver water, and only to those devices that might be activated by timed dissolution of a specially treated non-toxic material employed to plug then release water when the said aforementioned material has, over a predetermined period of time, totally dissolved into the water.
(2) Description of Prior Art
The inventor, through development of his own origional concept, arrived at the herein presented and described watering apparatus. Subsequent investigation pursuant to patent application disclosed two existing patents on which the present embodiment touches but upon which it modifies, improves, and simplifies.
H. Rohling teaches of a very complex, root controlled, plant watering device in U.S. Pat. No. 3,438,575). The present invention by its simplicity alone greatly improves on Rohling's device also the present embodiment is capable of watering anything, animal, vegetable, or mineral since it does not rely on "soil moisture" to trigger its water release. Though a "vacuum breaking" principle is employed in Rohling's device the vacuum breaking tube in present invention is all in the open and could not be compromised by blockage, contamination, or compaction of soil around it.
Soong et al taught in their U.S. Pat. No. 4,121,734 of a device outwardly similar to the present embodiment, however different in several ways to wit:
The "spike" that might be used for placing the device in soil, being directly attached to and an integral part of the "reservoir" would limit the devices application to plants surrounded by "supporting" soil wherein the present embodiment using its stand could be used in any watering application and would in no way have such a limitation.
The amount of water released in the Soong device is limited to the amount held between its various levels whereas the present invention may be filled to any level up to the total capacity of the containment vessel and that amount will be released in a rush when desired.
Soong describes multiple levels to provide multiple watering "times" where the present embodiment uses filled tubes of varying lengths whereby the watering time can be more precisely controlled and the amount of water delivered more widely varied. Further, once the Soong device is filled with water the process begins wherein the present invention may be filled, set aside, then inverted and used at the pleasure of the administrator.